‘There’s something ironic about the fact that thousands more people have read these novels than will ever read my thesis or academic articles.’
Photograph: Alamy

I am leading a double life. My shameful secret is that I have published three novels before the end of my PhD. But I wouldn’t be talking about it if I couldn’t do so anonymously.

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Academia is full of people who produce literature, from critically-acclaimed poetry to intellectual novels. Creative Writing departments are on the rise all over the country – their doctoral students deliver carefully thought-through social commentaries, intellectually rigorous plays, or poetry that exudes an academic ethos.

That’s not what I’m talking about. I write bodice-rippers. Paperback romance novels that seek to titillate and entertain (both me and the reader). I create what is commonly referred to as pulp fiction.

I was very lucky to have a mentor from the start, a friend far more established in their academic career who also has a sideline in crime novels. They advised me in no uncertain terms to keep the two absolutely separate. I should not breathe a word about my novel-writing until I had a permanent position. This is the advice that I would, unhappily, give to anyone doing the same thing.

The intellectual snobbery inherent in academia stacks the odds against the producer of genre fiction, and makes secrecy compulsory. I could count on the fingers of one hand the people I have told, and only after years of knowing them.

Colleagues in the arts react with a strange mixture of nervous supportiveness and embarrassed indifference. If I bring up the subject (in private conversations off-campus, naturally), the conversation is swiftly curtailed. I don’t know if this is to do with the sex – perhaps they’re embarrassed on my behalf – or some other reason. I’m afraid to ask.

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But my older friends, who are scientists, have been effusive in their enthusiasm. They promptly read my output and are eager to chat about it. It’s nice to be reminded that the usual reaction to someone getting a novel published is happiness on their behalf, rather than five minutes of awkward conversation about how at least you’ll get some money off it, and aren’t books like that terribly funny anyway.

Obviously, I don’t consider these paperback romances a part of my research output; nor would I want it to be common knowledge in the wider academic community that this is something that I do, and enjoy.

I’m never going to be as proud of these books as I am of my academic work. But there’s something ironic about the fact that thousands more people have read these novels than will ever read my thesis or the academic articles that I’ve published under my real name as a scholar in my field.

A previous Academics Anonymous post decried the “selfie epidemic” and insisted that to popularise anything is to devalue it. I can well imagine the dim view someone of that ilk would take of me and my work. Certainly, the books would damage my credentials as a serious academic – especially since they draw heavily on my area of study and expertise.

But for all the frivolity of popular fiction, I believe that writing them has made me a better scholar. I have deconstructed my own ideas about the people who produce, read and write genre fiction. I’m better able to spot arguments based on nothing more than intellectual snobbery. I’m certainly less inhibited about my out-of-work reading, choosing things that I enjoy, rather than thinking that my down time ought to be spent reading something “improving”.

Ultimately, though, I’m glad I’ve done it. I enjoy writing them. I like having a life that is separate from academia, and seeing my writing appreciated in another way. The books have been a moderate success and so, unlike most of my fellow PhD students, I have been relatively financially secure. But I also work hard at it: maintaining social media interactions with readers, liaising with the publisher, keeping two halves of my life separate.

My success is my dirty little secret. There must be other academics who support themselves in this way, although I have never met them. Or perhaps I have – but they would never, ever dare to bring it up.